The Beast in the Jungle

Henry James’s The Beast in the Jungle explores how an over-investment in the future distorts the inner life of those who live in a state of constant expectation. Throughout the novella, Marcher compares his present circumstances to the more exciting, possibly catastrophic, event that lurks just around the corner. Anticipation is the driving force of his existence; paradoxically, it is also what causes his failure to appreciate that existence.

The anticipation of Marcher’s future catastrophe initially binds Marcher and May to each other. Even though 10 years have passed since their first meeting, May clearly recalls the conversation they had at Sorrento:

[Y]ou said you had had from your earliest time, as the deepest thing within you, the sense of being kept for something rare and strange, possibly prodigious and terrible, that was sooner or later to happen to you, that you had in your bones the foreboding and the conviction of, and that would perhaps overwhelm you (13-14).

Marcher has maintained this “sense” over the course of a decade and consistently articulates it in extreme terms. That is, he does not only fantasize about being “kept for something rare and strange, possibly prodigious and terrible,” he experiences it as a bodily, physical reality “in his bones.